College Crosse Prospectus - September 5, 2017: Meet The (Greater) Philly Founders Of Lace Up; From Lacrosse To Ultramarathons.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING, College Crosse Nation!! Thanks for making us a part of your day! Here are your links for September 5, 2017.

College Crosse News.

Philly.com did a nice long piece on Tad Doyle and Jay Ciccarone, founders of LaceUp.

So much seems improbable about LaceUp’s sensational launch as a start-up specializing in wrap-around weights for lacrosse sticks. For one thing, cofounder Jay Ciccarone never played lacrosse. Golf was his sport at St. Pius High School in Pottstown and Georgia Southern University. Then there’s the daunting retail reality, as explained by the founder of what bills itself as the largest lacrosse specialty retailer in the United States: “Our company gets 10 of these a week,” said Joe DeSimone, president of Long Island-based Lacrosse Unlimited, which opened in 1990 and has 44 stores in 12 states. By these, he meant “someone coming out with a kooky idea.”

But DeSimone instantly liked LaceUp’s Training Lace weights and has been carrying them since May. He’s sold about 3,000 and was about to order 5,000 more, he said last week, praising their versatility and ease of use.

One of America's best ultramarathon runners was a former BALLER at Michigan State Univ & played lots of Box Lacrosse.

Arlington, Virginia’s Michael Wardian is one of the top ultramarathon runners in the U.S. He is also a strong marathon runner and races the distance frequently. He won the 2008, 2009 and 2010 US 50K Championships. In 2008, he won the U.S. National 100K Championships.

CK: You played lacrosse in the NCAA (in case you forgot). How did you make that seemingly late transition from an intense team sport to the more pastoral marathon and ultra-marathon running?

MW: I did play lacrosse and still think of myself as a lacrosse player but now I just run and do so at a high level. I made the transition from lacrosse to running when I stopped playing lacrosse my junior year at Michigan State University. I just wanted to stay fit so I picked up running because it was cheap and fast and fell in love with how it made me feel.

CK: Still a Spartan at heart?

MW: I am definitely a big fan of Michigan State University and all the people that I know from there.

CK: Did you play much box lacrosse?

MW: I did play box lacrosse a lot. I played from the time I was in about eighth grade all the way through college and I loved it. Very physical and made me into a much better athlete and all-around lacrosse player.

CK: Ever have visions of playing boxla in the NLL, WLA or OLA?

MW: I did want to play at the highest level in lacrosse and really did at the time I was playing but now I am focused on being the best runner and endurance athlete I can be.

Great post about BOSS Berkman of Salisbury induction into the North County Sports Hall of Fame in early October.

Since he came to Salisbury University as the men’s lacrosse coach in 1989, Jim Berkman led the maroon and gold into the upper echelons of NCAA Division III lacrosse. The success of the program under his leadership has brought him numerous individual coaching honors such as NCAA Division III Coach of the Year and a 2013 National Lacrosse Hall of Fame induction alongside his now 12 NCAA Division III men’s lacrosse national titles. While he continues to be a mentor for his student-athletes, it is important to remember that the roots are what make the man. Those roots for coach Berkman are within the North Country region of upstate New York, specifically Watertown, N.Y. and St. Lawrence University.

Want to make a lacrosse stick? Here you go, fam!

BOSS Swezey of Vanderbilt recaps the team's first fall practice while looking ahead at the upcoming fall season.

VMI’s got some nice new threads!

Get your weight up, lads!

What’s Up, PhilaJersey?

The Miss America competition in Atlantic City starts up with a week full of events.

With the Labor Day weekend coming to a close, the city sets the stage for its nearly 100-year tradition of hosting the Miss America competition. Contestants who arrived last week for rehearsals are set for this week’s competitions and other events. On Wednesday through Friday, Miss America preliminary competitions will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. The contestants have been divided into three groups and will rotate each night, competing in lifestyle and fitness, talent and eveningwear.

World/National News.

Well that’s not creepy or anything: Facebook AI learns human reactions after watching hours of Skype.
There’s something not quite right about humanoid robots. They are cute up to a point, but once they become a bit too realistic, they often start to creep us out – a foible called the uncanny valley. Now Facebook wants robots to climb their way out of it. Researchers at Facebook’s AI lab have developed an expressive bot, an animation controlled by an artificially intelligent algorithm. The algorithm was trained on hundreds of videos of Skype conversations, so that it could learn and then mimic how humans adjust their expressions in response to each other. In tests, it successfully passed as human-like.

To optimise its learning, the algorithm divided the human face into 68 key points that it monitored throughout each Skype conversation. People naturally produce nods, blinks and various mouth movements to show they are engaged with the person they are talking to, and eventually the system learned to do this too. The bot was then able to look at a video of a human speaking, and choose in real time what the most appropriate facial response would be. If the person was laughing, for example, the bot might choose to open its mouth too, or tilt its head.

Your GIF for September 5, 2017.

Always shoot your shot.

That’s it for today!! I’ll see you out there!! Make sure you follow us on social media!

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Managing Editors: Safe Fekadu, Chris Jastrzembski, Ryan McDonnell.